In this workshop, we will look at how politeness works in English. We will see that there is more than one kind of politeness, and it varies according to the relationship of speaker to listener. We will consider the problems this may present for learners and try out some classroom activities for raising awareness of this aspect of language.

If you’re motivated to do something you value what you’re doing, and if you value what you’re doing you’re motivated – you’ll attend to the task at hand and be more likely to achieve success. In this presentation, we’ll briefly examine the nature of motivation alongside different aspects of courses we teach.

In this presentation, we will look at intrinsic motivation in the ELT classroom. I will suggest that for a lesson to generate intrinsic motivation, it should appeal not also to the student-as-learner but also the student-as-person.

Many learners of English are now required to take an end-of-course speaking test, which teachers have to design, administer and assess. In this presentation, we’ll examine characteristics of practice tests which provide useful pointers for in-house test design.

Providing feedback is one of the most commonly conceived functions of a teacher, yet, according to Nunan (1991), the ultimate effect of feedback is often doubtful. How do we tend to respond to students' written work? What messages are we sending to our students as a result? Is the ultimate effect really, as Nunan suggests, doubtful? What are the implications for our teaching?

"I've studied English for X years but I still can't use it". Sound familiar? It's what you get when you present language as a ladder of grammar rules rather than as communicative potential. If learners want to be able to use English, they need an action-oriented approach to language: developing communicative competences rather than just knowledge of form.

In this workshop, we will look at the pronunciation of grammar features including verb inflections, contractions, auxiliaries, part of speech and clause structure. We will see how the pronunciation of these features is particularly important for meaning, and can be easily integrated into course materials. We will look at ways of working on these areas of pronunciation.

ELT teachers have used attainment tests for many purposes - to evaluate, assess, or even threaten students! But they can also be a force for motivation. We will investigate how typical tests and question types (mainly testing grammar) may impact on student motivation, and look at ways to design, adapt and use them to increase their motivational value.

Cultural awareness seems to be making a re-appearance in the language teaching and learning literature. In this workshop we will focus on the ‘new look’ cultural awareness – intercultural competence (ICC). We will situate its growing importance and discuss what it entails. We will also take a look at a selection of classroom materials and briefly consider assessment of ICC.

With increased mobility in the European Higher Education Area, many teachers are now finding that they have students from different cultural backgrounds in their classrooms. Additionally, many English language teachers might be finding that they are now teaching students who are aiming to study a part of their degree, through the medium of English, in a different country.